Responding to allegation of unaccountability with regards to research seats going empty at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar told the JNU Court that faculty members who did not cooperate with the admission branch and refused to provide information on intake were the ones lamenting about fewer students.
“If reserve seats were not filled, it is the centres that are responsible for informing about the vacant seats, setting the question papers for entrance exams, evaluating the answer scripts and holding viva voce, which are to be answerable,” he said.
The V-C also told the JNU Court, which is the supreme statutory body of the university that meets once a year and is presided over by the Chancellor V.K, Saraswat, that JNU’s Golden Jubilee celebrations will start from January 12 with the installation of Swami Vivekananda’s statue. He clarified that no university funds were being used for the statue.
The JNU Teachers’ Association claimed that it tried to raise several issues during the meeting, but they were brushed aside by the V-C without any explanation.
The teachers asked why the JNU administration had not placed the admission data for 2018-19 before the Academic Council as is statutorily required and reiterated that in 2017-18, 83% of MPhil-PhD seats were cut by the administration through wrongful implementation of the UGC regulations.
Even of the 290 seats offered, 131 seats were left vacant and Constitutional provisions for reservations were blatantly violated, said the association.